The Candle Holder in Arc Raiders is an uncommon, recyclable material item that lives in one very specific type of loot pool: Residential. It weighs 2, stacks up to 3, sells for 640 coins, and can be broken down into Metal Parts, but during the Cold Snap event, its main role is as a donation requirement for the Flickering Flames project.
You need three Candle Holders to clear that step, which is exactly when most players realize they’ve been selling or scrapping them on sight. The fastest way to recover is to stop looting randomly and lean into a few high‑density Residential locations.
What Candle Holders do and why Residential matters
Candle Holders are tagged as an uncommon, recyclable material that:
- Spawn from scavenging Residential locations.
- Recycle in the Raider Den into 8× Metal Parts.
- Salvage topside into 4× Metal Parts.
- Have a stack size of 3 and weight of 2.
- Sell for 640 coins, which is high for an uncommon material.
For the Flickering Flames event project, you only need three, and there is no known crafting recipe that consumes Candle Holders. That makes them a short‑term progression bottleneck rather than a long‑term build component. Once your project step is done, extra copies are best treated as either coin value or Metal Parts.
The Residential tag is the key filter. Any point of interest (POI) with the little person icon uses a Residential loot table, which includes everyday household items like Candle Holders. Focusing on these POIs instead of industrial or military areas drastically improves your odds.
Best Candle Holder locations by map
Residential loot is spread across all the main maps, but a few clusters stand out for their building density and container count. These are the most efficient places to focus your runs when you specifically need Candle Holders.
| Map | Residential POI | Why it’s good for Candle Holders | Risk profile |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Blue Gate | Village | Large cluster of multi‑floor apartments with a high number of dressers, suitcases, and cabinets. | Moderate, open layout makes it easier to spot incoming players. |
| Buried City | Grandioso Apartments | Compact Residential block with repeatable cupboard and cabinet spawns inside apartments. | High, because Buried City is tight and encourages frequent PvP. |
| Dam Battlegrounds | Ruby Residence & Pale Apartments | Cluster of apartments northwest of Hydroponic Dome Complex; multiple fully‑lootable units per building. | Lower, fewer players tend to rotate here compared to central objectives. |
Farming Candle Holders at the Village (The Blue Gate)
The Village on The Blue Gate is the most reliable starting point if you want to walk out with multiple Candle Holders in a single run. It sits on the northwest side of the map and is made up mostly of stacked apartment blocks, which means a lot of interior spaces and a lot of containers.
Step 1: Spawn into The Blue Gate and rotate straight toward the Village in the northwest, prioritizing any route that keeps you off main roads to reduce early contact.
Step 2: Once inside the Village, pick one apartment building and clear it systematically, floor by floor, before moving on. Avoid bouncing between buildings; the density per structure is high enough that you want thoroughness, not speed.
Step 3: Interact with every residential container type you see: dressers, wardrobes, suitcases, kitchen cabinets, and small cupboards. Candle Holders tend to appear in these domestic containers instead of industrial crates or tool chests.
Step 4: After you finish one building, move to the next closest one and repeat the same pattern until your bag is full or you’ve found the three Candle Holders you need.
Because of the sheer number of lootable objects packed into a small area, it’s common for an entire squad to finish their Flickering Flames Candle Holder requirement in a single Village run if they stay focused on interiors.
Using Grandioso Apartments (Buried City) when you want compact runs
Grandioso Apartments in Buried City is another strong Residential hotspot. It doesn’t cover as much ground as the Village, but makes up for it with tightly packed rooms and repeatable cupboard spawns that often roll household loot.
Step 1: Enter Buried City and head to the southern Residential zone where Grandioso Apartments is located, watching for ambushes along the chokepoints into the complex.
Step 2: Move inside the apartment block and head straight to the kitchen and hallway areas in each unit, where cupboards and wall‑mounted cabinets are clustered.
Step 3: Open every cupboard and cabinet in sight, then quickly sweep bedroom dressers and any suitcases in the corners before you move on to the next unit.
Step 4: Loop the building once, then decide whether to reset the run or rotate to nearby houses in southern Buried City, which also share the Residential loot table.
Low‑pressure farming at Ruby Residence and Pale Apartments (Dam Battlegrounds)
On Dam Battlegrounds, the Ruby Residence and Pale Apartments area northwest of the Hydroponic Dome Complex gives you another pockets of Residential loot with fewer interruptions from other players. The buildings here are smaller than the Village or Grandioso, but each holds several full apartments.
Step 1: Spawn into Dam Battlegrounds and move toward the northwest cluster of Ruby Residence and Pale Apartments, staying aware of patrols around the Hydroponic Dome Complex as you pass it.
Step 2: Enter one building and loot every apartment in sequence. Like the other spots, focus on home furniture: wardrobes, bedside tables, kitchen storage, and suitcases.
Step 3: Once the first building is cleared, bounce to the neighboring one and repeat. The small footprint makes it easy to sweep the entire area in a short time.
Step 4: If you spawn close to these apartments at the start of an expedition, prioritize them immediately, grab what you need, then either extract or rotate to your main objective.
This route is ideal if you want a low‑stress Candle Holder farm. You trade some raw container count compared to the Village for a much lower chance of running into another squad right on top of your loot.
How many Candle Holders you need and what to do with extras
For Cold Snap’s Flickering Flames project, you must donate exactly three Candle Holders. There are no known uses for them in crafting recipes, so they are not a long‑term progression item in the way that some specialized components are.
Once the project step is complete, treat every additional Candle Holder as either:
- Cash — selling them nets 640 coins each, which is strong value given their low weight, or
- Metal Parts — recycling in the Raider Den returns 8 Metal Parts, while salvaging topside returns 4 Metal Parts.
If you’re pushing weapon upgrades or crafting that lean heavily on Metal Parts, recycling is usually more efficient. If you are cash‑starved, selling them outright makes sense, especially given their favorable coin‑per‑weight ratio for an uncommon material.
When you stop treating Candle Holders as random trash and start treating them as a targeted Residential drop, they become easy to farm. Commit a few expeditions to the Village, Grandioso Apartments, or the Ruby Residence and Pale Apartments cluster, and you can clear the Flickering Flames requirement and still have spares to convert into coins or Metal Parts.
